Ichthyosis is a group of hereditary keratinization disordered dermatosis, which is referred to as “pityriasis or squamous and dry skin” in traditional Chinese medical science. In the traditional Chinese medical science, it is considered that the cause is mainly congenital deficiency of natural endowment. Congenital deficiency of kidney-essence causes spleen and lung yin deficiency arriving, body and skin missing nutrition, i.e. skin of snakeskin shape and scale like appears. Based on syndrome differentiation of zang-fu viscera, the root of ichthyosis lies in kidney, the origin thereof lies in spleen, and the symptom appears in lung. If a person has weak natural endowment, i.e, both the kidney and the spleen being deficiency congenitally, the kidney-essence being weak and few, and the spleen being unable to transportation and transformation, then the meridians are sluggish, qi and blood are stasis, and the skin cannot be fostered from the essence and blood, characterized as multifocal skin of snakeskin shape and scale like of the whole body. Ichthyosis is mainly characterized as xerosis cutis, associated along with fish scale desquamation. This disease primarily onsets during childhood, mainly characterized as the skin on side of the four limbs or torso portion dry and coarse, accompanied by rhombus or polygonal scales, with appearance as fish scale like or snakeskin shape. The disease gets worse in cold and dry season and better in warm and humid season. The disease is easy to recur. The hereditary factors cause epithelial cells proliferation and differentiation abnormal, leading to cells proliferation increased and (or) cells desquamation decreased.
The current situation of curing and nursing of ichthyosis is as follows:
1. oral drugs: the oral manner was often adopted in the past, and however the side effect of oral drugs is significant, for example, heavy dose of vitamin A causes serious side effect, making both doctors and patients awed by the sight even from distance. Even the side effect of the traditional Chinese herbal medicine is lower, if it is taken for a long term, more side effect could also occur due to the accumulation of heavy dose of drug, therefore generally it is not suggested to undergo oral curing and externally nursing for a long term.
2. external-use method: at present, there are methods such as fumigating, laser etc, but all these methods cannot prevent recurrence, and prophylaxis and treatment are not carried out by a same method, resulting in recurrence on many people.